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PRESIDENT KUCAN REPLIES TO THE LETTER BY THE PRESIDENT OF SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS
Since the conception of Memorandum of SASA there has been ample opportunity for protests against it's misuse by Serbians politicians
Ljubljana, 27 August 2001
Contrary to your claim, the Slovenians did not “borrow” their fear of a “Greater Serbia” from the Comintern and the Vienna social democrats; their fear originated from the actual situation faced by Slovenia in the late 1980’s, predominantly because of the growing pressures of the Greater Serbia policy, wrote president Kucan in his reply.
"The impact of the 1986 Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, on the events which took place in Serbia and Yugoslavia at that time and later and the consequent responsibility are issues which the Academy first needs to clarify within the Serbian public, and probably sooner or later also with the people of the respective former Yugoslav republics and autonomous regions which have endured the consequences of the Greater Serbia policy. I am convinced that the Serbian nation will be able to sustain a moral catharsis which will enable it to become an equal and sovereign partner in the family of united nations of Europe as soon as possible, as is my sincere wish. Searching for reasons elsewhere and pointing the finger only at others does not lead to this goal. This holds true for anybody who has either been involved in or could have prevented the atrocities of war,"
wrote president Kučan in his reply to the letter from June 13, 2001 by Dejan Medaković, president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, who reacted to the statement by president Kučan for the Slovak weekly Pravda (May 29, 2001). The interview contains nothing that I have not stood for since the late 1980s, when Yugoslavia began to desintegrate, added president Kučan and continued:
"Contrary to your claim, the Slovenians, at least, did not “borrow” their fear of a “Greater Serbia” from the Comintern and the Vienna social democrats; their fear originated from the actual situation faced by Slovenia in the late 1980’s, predominantly because of the growing pressures of the Greater Serbia policy. Mr President, I think that we both still remember those circumstances and pressures very well, they are also recorded in documents, newspapers and other media and have become an increasingly frequent subject of serious historical study.
Naturally, the formation and disintegration of two Yugoslav states after 1918 and 1945 respectively have their own reasons and consequences. They are historical events already studied by historians who will undoubtedly also determine the role played by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Serbian politicians and Serbian intellectuals in these events. They will also determine the role of those who opposed the Memorandum and the Greater Serbia policy and had to bear the consequences for having voiced their opinion. In this respect, neither my own nor your personal beliefs and convictions can replace historical analysis, drawn on scientific foundations, that has already been or is yet to be published.
The formal cooperation between the Serbian and Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in the time immediately preceding the disintegration of the former Yugoslav state is more than commendable. It would be of mutual benefit if it was restored and continued on a new contextual basis in the future. But I must remind you, Mr President, that the true, collegial and personal friendly contacts between Serbian and Slovenian academy members were interrupted long before the disintegration of the Yugoslav state. The main reason for this must be sought in the demands for the re-centralisation of Yugoslavia. Since the concept of these demands is also clear from the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenian intellectuals, Slovenian politicians and the Slovenian nation could not accept it. It is possible that Serbian politicians used or also misused the Memorandum of the SASA for their own purposes, but since its conception, there has been ample opportunity for the Academy or the Memorandum’s authors to voice their protest against the misuse of the document. Unfortunately, no such protest has been voiced during all these years.
I also wish to thank you for the authorised text of the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the commentaries by academy members Kosta Mihajlović and Vasilij Krestić which are much more extensive than the Memorandum itself. I wish to point out that the text of the Memorandum was authorised as late as in 1995, that is almost ten years after it was made public. I see no considerable differences between the present text and the original edition which was published in the Cyrillic script by the Serbian Literary Association of New York soon after the Memorandum was written and which was made available in all major libraries abroad. Neither does the content of the present text differ from the copies which were available across Yugoslavia soon after the Memorandum was written, nor does it differ from later Internet editions and published versions. Therefore people have indeed been able to form their opinion on the basis of the entire text of the Memorandum and not only on its individual paragraphs."
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